Information Technology Systems
Typically, users (i.e. people or other systems) engage computers to facilitate information processing. A computer operating system enables users to access and operate computer information technology. Information technology systems provide interfaces that allow users to access and operate systems.
User Interface
Computer user interfaces are analogous in many respects to automobile operator interfaces. Automobile operator interfaces such as steering wheels, gearshifts, and speedometers facilitate the access, operation, and display of automobile resources, functionality, and status. Similarly, computer user interfaces such as cursors, menus and windows facilitate the access, operation, and display of computer hardware and operating system resources, functionality, and status. Graphical user interfaces such as the Apple Macintosh Operating System or Microsoft's Windows provide a system for accessing and displaying information. Such consumer-oriented operating systems enable users to access and operate computer information technology by providing an integrated user interface. Other operating systems such as Unix do not provide integrated graphical user interfaces and instead allow various interfaces to be employed such as command line interfaces (e.g. C-shell) and graphical user interfaces (e.g. X windows).
World Wide Web
The proliferation and expansion of computer systems, databases, the Internet, and particularly the World Wide Web (the web), have resulted in a vast and diverse collection of information. Various user interfaces that facilitate the interaction of users with information technology systems (i.e. people using computers) are currently in use. An information navigation interface called WorldWideWeb.app, i.e. the web was developed in late 1990 on NeXT Computer Inc.'s operating system, NeXTSTEP, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, a particle physics center). Subsequently, information navigation interfaces, i.e. web browsers, have become widely available on almost every computer operating system platform.
Generally, the web is the manifestation and result of a synergetic interoperation between user interfaces (e.g. web browsers), servers, distributed information, protocols, and specifications. Web browsers were designed to facilitate navigation and access to information, while information servers were designed to facilitate provision of information. Typically, web browsers and information servers are disposed in communication with one another through a communications network; i.e. information servers typically provide information to users employing web browsers for navigating and accessing information about the web. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are examples of web browsers. In addition, navigation user interface devices such as WebTV have also been implemented to facilitate web navigation. Microsoft's Information Server and Apache are examples of information servers: their function is to serve information to users that typically access the information by way of web browsers.
Hypertext
Information on the web typically is provided through and distributed employing a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) specification. HTML documents are also commonly referred to as web pages. HTML documents may contain links to other HTML documents that can be traversed by users of web browsers (i.e. user interfaces) by selecting the links, which are commonly highlighted by color and underlining. HTML has been extended and upgraded resulting in new standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) and other such variants, which provide greater functionality. HTML's predecessor was Standardized General Markup Language (SGML), which in turn was preceded by the General Markup Language (GML). SGML is generally regarded as a more functional superset of HTML and first appeared in 1980 as a draft by the Graphic Communications Association (GCA) to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) (GCA 101-1983); it was adopted as an international standard by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 1986 (ISO 8879:1986). GML was first used to facilitate law office information system integration and improve document processing.
HTML documents typically are accessed through navigation devices via a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP is a stateless application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems, and is further described at the World Wide Web Consortium organization (W3C) web site entitled HTTP Specifications and Drafts (available at www.w3.org/Protocols/Specs.html). Microsoft's Information Server allows the tracking of a state with a built-in session object.
The basic web browsing paradigm presents users with a scrolling page full of text, pictures, and various other forms of information media such as movies and links to other documents. Web browsers allow users to access uniquely identified HTML documents on the web by entering a navigation location in a Universal Resource Locator (URL) and employing HTTP as a transfer protocol to provide and obtain web pages. Typically, a user provides the address of a desired HTML document into a URL (either directly or through the selection of links in an already viewed HTML document).
Transactions
The onset of the web affected a tremendous increase in transactions occurring through insecure communications networks such as the Internet. Increasingly, such transactions occur via web page forms. In many instances, it is critical that data acquired over a communications network be acquired in a consistent, predictable, and reliable way. Otherwise, a host of problems may result such as failed transactions, application errors, incorrect orders, irritated customers, and other such consequences.
Many of the transactions occurring on the Internet have become more complex requiring a user to make multiple related interactions to complete a transaction.
These multiple related interactions are commonly referred to as a session. In other words, sessions refer to multiple user interaction states. Microsoft's Information Server may maintain a persistent state, i.e. a session. A persistent session makes an interaction state available for reference for a specified period of time.